Pluto's Planet Status / String Theory

Science Friday ^ | August 18, 2006 | segment produced by Annette Heist

[SunkenCiv]

Is string theory the answer to the last big questions in physics, or a dead end? While some physicists believe that string theory could lead to a unifying 'theory of everything,' detractors say that string theory is sloppy and founded on unwarranted assumptions. One new book calls string theory 'not even wrong.' In this hour of Science Friday, we'll look at the pros and con of string theory, with physicists Lee Smolin and Brian Greene.

[SunkenCiv]

Found this while looking for Pluto / planet news updates. Michael Brown (co-discoverer of "Xena") will also appear.

[SunkenCiv]

:') Too bad, there's no String Theory ping list. I just bumped a few people who have posted related topics in the past. This isn't a ping list, but sorry for any inconvenience.

[Dr Stormfist]

I think I watched a program on the Discovery channel about String Theory, was very enlightening. It helped explain a lot of interesting things.

[SunkenCiv]

Ditching Dark Matter
The Guardian | Thursday February 13, 2003 | Marcus Chown
Posted on 02/15/2003 10:40:45 AM EST by Phaedrus
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/844020/posts

[SunkenCiv]

There's no String Theory ping list, and this isn't a ping list, so sorry for any inconvenience. I just bumped a few more people because I just know you'd feel neglected otherwise. :')

[SunkenCiv]

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[ckilmer]

The Not Even Wrong Guy has a blog up at columbia. http://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress/

He's been blogging on this for some time.

I don't understand strings or superstrings. But this is a golden age 0f math. So there should be some practical fallout from string theory.

The main arguement against string theory is that it hasn't produced any practical applications.

I don't know if this counts as a practical application. Could someone coment?This is the link to the article

Mathematician uses topology to study abstract spaces, solve problems

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. -- Studying complex systems, such as the movement of robots on a factory floor, the motion of air over a wing, or the effectiveness of a security network, can present huge challenges. Mathematician Robert Ghrist at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign is developing advanced mathematical tools to simplify such tasks.

Ghrist uses a branch of mathematics called topology to study abstract spaces that possess many dimensions and solve problems that can't be visualized normally. He will describe his technique in an invited talk at the International Congress of Mathematicians, to be held Aug. 23-30 in Madrid, Spain.

Ghrist, who also is a researcher at the university's Coordinated Science Laboratory, takes a complex physical system – such as robots moving around a factory floor – and replaces it with an abstract space that has a specific geometric representation.

"To keep track of one robot, for example, we monitor its x and y coordinates in two-dimensional space," Ghrist said. "Each additional robot requires two more pieces of information, or dimensions. So keeping track of three robots requires six dimensions. The problem is, we can't visualize things that have six dimensions."

Mathematicians nevertheless have spent the last 100 years developing tools for figuring out what abstract spaces of many dimensions look like.

[Hound of the Baskervilles]

"') Too bad, there's no String Theory ping list"

I wish there was one too. I would like to be on it. I was reading some books on it before the war in Lebanon distracted me.

[SunkenCiv]

It's not one of my interests, although I do sometimes read about here (mostly here), but I was sure there was a ping list for it. Guess not. :')

[Paradox]

Its either the greatest theory since Relativity, or its the biggest case of mental m@sterbation in a century..

[SunkenCiv]

:')

[LibWhacker]

Thanks for the ping. I'm always interested in these string theory threads. Missed the live airing but will try to listen to it when they get around to putting it in the podcast archive.

[SunkenCiv]

I think it will be broadcast at 2 PM.

[LibWhacker]

Okay, thanks! :-)

[SunkenCiv]

Jupiter has over 60 moons, some of which are retrograde, and most of which have been discovered in recent years. I propose eliminating them as moons, and reverting to just the four Galilean moons of Jupiter. The other moons are too small / too different / too strange. And I won't compromise or listen to anyone about this. ;')

The lame and/or childish objections to the proposed planet definition have hit a new low -- CNN trumpets that the Moon would have to be reclassified as a planet, provided it survives long enough. If the IAU still exists then, it can make that determination.

[samtheman]

Those theoretical physicists think that just because they're good at math they can string the rest of us along.

[SunkenCiv]

[rimshot!]

:'D

[Fred Nerks]

The other moons are too small / too different / too strange. And I won't compromise or listen to anyone about this. ;') -----

All your space junk R belong to Jupiter!

[SunkenCiv]

Retrograde is what you get when you flunk astronomy. [rimshot!]

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks. This is from his blog:

"Lemonick describes both Smolin and me as having worked on string theory. Smolin has done original research on the subject, but I certainly haven’t. I don’t agree at all with Sean Carroll that the problem is that not enough string theorists “take the goal of connecting to experiment more seriously”. Many of them take it very seriously, but the fact that it is a failed idea that doesn’t work is what has forced them into the landscape nonsense and other complicated, unworkable schemes.

"The quote from me is a little bit out of context. I was making the point that physicists necessarily often start out with speculative ideas that are “not even wrong”, in the sense that they are so poorly understood that one can’t tell where they will lead, and that this is very much legitimate science."

http://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress/